Two months ago, we were in Albany, WA...

It's amazing how time has flown! And I still haven't written all those posts that I planned to.

Albany has a number of historical buildings and sites; we visited a few. 

A plaque honoring the centenary of the founding of Albany...

This plaque in the next photo is all about communication; it's on the site of the first telegraph pole that brought communication from the eastern states to WA.

 That plaque is in front of this lovely old building which is now part of a university.

A view of the same building taken from farther down the street...

Behind that historical building is a more modern building with an interesting roofline...

The street scene from across the street from the uni building...

And a A frame board outside a cafe...

In a previous post on Albany, I mentioned that George Vancouver 'has left his name' on a few places in this area, and the town is no longer exception.

So we went looking for this place...despite the sign, they were actually closed for the day! 🤔

And a nearby cafe had George's name on it too! 

Here's another lovely old building we saw...

And this one too!

I have a little 'game' with one of my nieces; if either one of us sees a 'big' anything, ( Aussies have a lot of things/tourist attractions such as Big Pineapple, Big Banana, Big Sheep, BigPrawn, Big RockingHorse etc etc)  we take a photo and send it to the other. So when I saw the following item outside a shop in Albany, I just had to get DH to take a photo...

I loved this artwork on a building...

Another street view...

Walking around the town builds up an appetite so we stopped at a cafe that looked very popular with locals. 

My cheese and chicken topper baked potato and salad was delish...

And DH loved that pie 😊

There is one more post I've planned to write about our visit to Albany. It will feature a particular exhibition at the Museum. 

The Gap, Natural Bridge, Albany...

On that recent visit to Western Australia, DH and I were surprised by how cold the weather was...especially in Albany. We had taken very little warmer clothing and I resorted to 'layering'; wearing garments in combinations I had never before imagined that I would. 😆

I was so glad that I had packed that scarf, as even though it was lightweight, it did provide some warmth. I wore a tank top, and then a short sleeved T shirt, over which I wore a long sleeved polo shirt, then the waterproof jacket DH had bought me in Alaska. And the plan was to then wear the purple cape/jacket over the top of all those layers...if I still felt cold outside. 

Our first destination that day was the spot known as The Gap, which also featured the adjacent Natural Bridge. 

We had been warned! Lol

This was one view of the landscape from the carpark...

Looking in the other direction, the landscape looked like this...

And we needed no convincing to obey the sign and keep to the paths. 

First we headed for the lookout...

It was quite an engineering marvel! 

Some views from the lookout...

You can see why visitors must keep to the paths...those rocks look slippery and that sea looks very rough! 

The first lookout overlooks the Natural Bridge lookout; that lookout is smaller and it seemed to be less windy there...

Before we walked down hill to the Natural Bridge, we moved along the walkway of the top lookout to check out The Gap...

It was freezing! The wind blew relentlessly.

The walkway was mesh and you could see the 'wild water' and rocks far below...

I got a bit brave and took photos of the deep gorge...

And even more brave when I held the phone OVER the railing, ignoring the wind...

Then we strolled downhill in the other direction to have a look at the Natural Bridge. 

Huge rocks!

Some islands out to sea...

The Bridge! 

The information boards were very interesting reading...

I'm so glad we were able to see this part of the coastline...very interesting features and dramatic landscapes! One thing we discovered in our exploration of the Albany district, was that the explorer, George Vancouver ( of Canadian exploration and naming fame) explored this area too and his name is on a few places there.